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India, who failed to enter the T20 World Cup semi-final in October at Dubai, will look to start afresh with the three-match T20I series beginning today at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai, today.
India had lost to eventual winners New Zealand and runners-up Australia in the league stage of the World Cup.
With Harmanpreet Kaur still at the helm, the hosts are expected to put up a better show against the 2016 T20 world champions West Indies, who are ranked sixth, three places below India.
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Windies captain Hayley Matthews
India may have a better record in T20Is in this calendar year, winning 13 and losing six. But, when it comes to crunch games, India fail to cross the line like in the Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka or in the qualification for the World Cup semi-finals.
“It’s only the mindset. Our team have very good players and all of them have done really well whenever they got the opportunity. In the big games, it’s only about the mindset and how you are feeling individually,” Kaur said on Saturday. “As a team, you can only talk about things you have done or you have to do. At the end of the day, it’s only you who is dealing in the middle and how you’re going to take things forward.”
A tired-looking India, who were drubbed 0-3 in an ODI series in Australia four days ago, will draw confidence from their overall record against the Caribbeans (13 wins and 8 losses) and the fact that they have won each of their last eight clashes.
The Windies’ graph has been declining since the World Cup triumph in 2016, losing 45 and winning only 37 in 85 T20Is. Captain Hayley Matthews said: “When we look at 2024 as a team, especially in T20 cricket, we’ve done really well. We won four out of five T20s against Pakistan and two out of three against Sri Lanka and then made the World Cup semi-final. So yeah, over that eight-year span, things might look like it’s not gone that well. But over the last year or so, we’ve done a really good job of putting the team together and everyone really putting up their hand and playing their roles to get us wins.”
The three-match ODI series will be held in Baroda.
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